South Cook News

At its Nov. 8 meeting, the Chicago Ridge School District 127.5 board discussed building renovation and construction projects.

The board discussed the base bids which were mainly dealing with different portions of Ridge Central: incorporating a middle courtyard into the building to add some classrooms and work spaces, redoing the front office space to improve workflow and safety for the building, adding a classroom into the library, and converting the teachers' lounge to a classroom.

Kathy Piccolini, business manager for the district, added that there could be cases of classrooms that can't accommodate the number of enrolled students.

The board also discussed expanding four classrooms at the Finley campus as well as eventually adding two new classrooms. The board had three bids for the two base bids, one of which was rescinded by the company. They also included alternates in the base bids like restroom renovations, which it could choose to accept as part of the bid or not, based on the numbers.

The cost for all aspects of the project is $7.5 million. The district’s original estimate for the project was $6.4 million earlier in the year. However, rising labor costs, supply chain issues, and time constraints have raised the prices. The district can budget $4.2 million from its ESSAR III funds for the project. The board discussed whether or not to do all aspects of the project right away, and leaned toward doing everything as long as it can budget the money out safely as rising construction costs would make it more expensive if they waited.

The board will meet again at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 13 at Ridge Central School on 10800 Lyman Ave. in Chicago Ridge.